Saturday, September 29, 2012

We had Owen's birthday party today....tons of fun, tons of mess of course! I am not at all a planner so I had a few vague ideas for activities and just went with what the kids seemed to like the most. I think you'll be able to tell from the pictures which was the most successful. I'm telling you, nothing unites a group of multi-aged children like big messy fun. Since the photos explain themselves, I'll shut up now, except to say that I got the idea for the dry erase pictures (covered pictures with contact paper) from a pin on Pinterest long ago. When I went to the original site to find the specific post, I had trouble finding it BUT as I was skimming through the blog I immediately felt like this woman has instantly saved my stuck-indoors-winter days. Check it out...SO many awesome ideas: Play At Home Mom LLC.

Anyway, here you go--hooray for Owen turning 2 and his wonderful little buddies for coming and celebrating with us!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

I can't believe another year has gone by, but it has now been officially TWO YEARS since I gave birth to Owen. We had a really full day today and here at the end of it, I feel like I earned my stripes (why hasn't anyone made this an official thing for us parents yet--seriously, I think we deserve it!) because it was a day of extreme ups and downs with some contentedness mixed in as well. What else could we all want, right? Here is our day through pictures:

The birthday boy first thing in the morning...I'm talkin' 5:30am, people. Kid couldn't wait to be 2 I guess. With a face like this though, how could I complain (too much)? He opened his presents early too, so that Nathan could get going to work on time and he was seriously the best present-opener I've ever seen. He honestly LOVED everything and was so excited about it all. He laughed and laughed and so did the rest of us...

I kept this one because I love it. It's how he "keeps his eyes peeled"

Both kids randomly decided to experiment with the arts and crafts stuff. As per usual, my initial internal reaction was one of resistance but also as per usual, I decided not to give a rat's ass and just let them go hog wild. Why not, right? What else were we going to do?

Zoe wanted to revisit the trusty "stained glass jar" project. I love
this one because it's so easy (totally not my idea--got it from a Family
Housing craft class we took long ago) and they come out looking really
very nice. You can be as haphazard or detail oriented as you want and
they all come out great. I cut a box of tissue paper into little pieces
a long time ago and have saved them for an occasion like this. You
just paint the jar with glue, stick the paper on however you want and
paint over the paper again with glue (optional) to give a shiny finish.
When it's dry, put a candle in the jar!

The Owen "I throw things randomly when I get inexplicably mad" Stith version...plastic cup...I washed the glue and paper off when he was done because he didn't care at all about the finished product..was just glad to be doing what Zoe was doing.

If you know me at all, I don't have to explain how happy this makes me

She ended up getting creative with it and added some stars (thanks Gram!) to the outside and then a bunch of stuff inside the jar..."Party in a Jar"

I eventually decided to get a bunch of random craft stuff we have in the
closet and put it in front of them to see what they'd do with it. It
was really fun, but predictably ended with Owen randomly getting mad at
I-have-no-idea-what in 2 seconds flat and doing the Toddler Sweep...yes, I
totally just made that phrase up..if you can't already picture what I mean, just imagine him suddenly waving his arms over the table as you see it in the picture below
(except that box of little tiny tissue paper pieces was directly to his
right at the time of The Sweep) in a sort of horizontal windshield wiper
motion. He utilizes this move often (yes I know, but I promise I'm getting better at anticipating it) and it usually includes The Sweep followed by The Race: after he's cleared everything immediately within his little arms reach with The Sweep, he frantically starts grabbing at other things just a bit further but still within reach. It ends up being a race between the two of us and, having the element of surprise on his side, he usually wins, leaving the table completely cleared and the floor completely covered.

As I was picking up said floor at the end of this crafting session (you can probably imagine how long it was taking me) Owen got bored or antsy or annoyed or...I have no idea.. and was completely losing it. I calmly tried to find something to distract him and finally decided he probably just wanted to get out of his chair. So, I did that...I took him out of his chair, set him on his two feet next to the table and in 3 seconds, he somehow ended up like this:

This is my life with this kid. I felt a little badly snapping a picture at this point, but on mornings like this the tantrums happen so much that sometimes you realize all you can do is wait for him to stop feeling so mad. Sometimes you give him a few MORE seconds and he comes back around to this:

No, that timeline is not at all exaggerated. It makes me feel a little insane sometimes, to tell you the truth. At one point this morning, I was carrying a flailing Owen into our room to change his diaper while Zoe was following along, crying and yelling at me because I hadn't apologized to her for wiping off 5 of the 12 layers of my blush she had just put on. I could actually feel the moment where my brain made the conscious choice to laugh at the situation instead of giving in to the chaos and completely losing my mind. I cringed and inwardly laughed at the 3 of us and our sometimes claustrophobic life and got through that moment by the skin of my teeth. The chaos continued though, and I made it my mission to get at least 2 of us outside for some fresh air...Zoe miraculously took a turn and tearfully told me to take Owen for a quick walk (to our dumpster in the parking lot to take out the garbage) because she "wanted to do something really nice that I would feel proud of (her) about" and I decided to go with it. The walk calmed me and Owen both down and by the time we got back (we took our time and chatted with a friend outside) Zoe had made us all lunch. We all sat down together and marveled at how our moods can change so quickly sometimes as we ate our PB&J. Phew!

Anyway, the rest of the day went relatively smoothly...

Zoe reading to him. They do this so much, but I never get tired of happening upon the scene. She was singing this book, if you couldn't tell.

While Zoe was at school, Owen and I went to McGuckin's, our local hardware store.
All four of us love going there just to walk around because it's huge
and they have SO MUCH STUFF and also, the employees are really nice. The hardware section has a dummy that's set up to look like
he's being squished between the shelves, so all you see is an arm and a leg sticking out....they call him "Mr. Nobody" (har har...get
it?) and he's become one of Owen's favorite things to go and see. He thinks it's hilarious to shake Mr. Nobody's hand. While we were there today we met this couple because the woman overheard us telling someone it was Owen's birthday. She told us it was also her husband Eric's 84th birthday and she went to get him so the two could meet. We chatted a bit and went on our merry ways.

Naptime...with trusty buddies and new beloved birthday airplane.

Not sure which of these three pictures I like best...the two of them smiling away, Owen holding one of his favorite gifts of the day. Zoe knew she wanted to get it for him before we even went to the store..she really knows her bro!

It rained in the afternoon and we first got caught in it and then went out in it on purpose..

Not at all a good picture, but Owen was CRACKING UP

This was
during our venture out into the rain after getting caught in it (annoyingly I can't for the life of me figure out how to rotate this video). We ran
into our friends Joshua and Charrie and the kids had a blast in this
puddle for a while...

The kids also helped make the birthday brownies, of course...

..and when Nathan got home we got to sing to the birthday boy and eat those brownies up!

I love how Zoe is forever the protective big sister..."Careful, Owen"

The both of them had been waiting SO LONG to eat those brownies...look at them! SO CLOSE!!